just don’t say it
Within Christian community I have heard comments directed towards myself or others which often make my heart do a little yelp. I recognize that unless you have lived certain experiences, it can be hard to understand what things not to say. I do believe that a lot of these comments have come from Christians with good intentions, but I think they fail to accurately reflect God’s heart.
So here goes my request to please stop saying:
Please stop justifying what abusers have done by calling that love. Abuse victims have enough of a battle to relearn what love is, and, often, the abuse they have experienced causes them to struggle to grasp or understand God’s love. When you try to encourage them that the other person did love them, what you are in fact doing is saying “what happened to you is excusable because they just didn’t understand what they are doing”. Abusers are accountable for their actions. God is love. God is never abusive. Do not ever confuse abuse and love, because one is why God needed to go to the cross and the other is why He did.
Please stop overemphasizing modesty. Victims of sexual assault etc. sometimes are known to go to an extreme in their own over-sexualization of themselves as a trauma response to attempt to gain control back (the other end of the spectrum is also true). By no means does this justify everything they wear or do, but how much more important is it to gently come in to that place with comfort for their heart, rather than once again sending them the message that their body is the problem.
Please stop commenting on the size of someone’s body. There really is so little that can ever be helpful about this, whereas I could easily exceed 50 reasons it can be extremely detrimental. God made each and every individual body on this planet. If your care for someone is over their well-being, there are so many other ways to comment in support of that or speak encouragement into their life. You really have very little idea what battles someone is facing in their relationship with their own body.
Please stop telling people with anxiety to just trust God. I recognize - there is truth in the freedom of trusting God. But what really brings comfort is knowing God’s heart. He is trustworthy because how good He is. He is trustworthy because He is unchangable. He is trustworthy because He never leaves His children. He is trustworthy because He always holds to His promises. These truths can bring deep comfort to individuals struggling with anxiety, but making the comment to “just trust” minimizes often how heavy anxiety can be. It also can add another thing onto the person, rather than producing encouragement to their heart.
Please stop telling people with depression to just find hope in the Lord. I can tell you that He is absolutely the only true source of hope. Just because I know this in my soul has not exempted me from seasons where the weight of the pain of this world hasn’t felt like it might suffocate me. Individuals struggling with depression most need to experience the love and comfort of Christ. This is a beautiful opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus. The hope that we have in Jesus is in His character and goodness. If your goal is to remind them of that, then show them with how you love them.
Please stop telling trauma victims they need to forgive their abusers. I can promise you that if they are a Christian they are 100% already aware of that and probably struggling with that battle. Forgiveness comes at a cost. The point of God’s forgiveness of our sins is that it cost Him His Son because sin requires payment to a Holy God. The sins of the abusers are not free. When you overemphasize the need to forgive to the victim, it only further perpetrates the narrative that they are somehow responsible for the consequences of another’s deeply harmful actions.
Please stop telling victims that their abusers are Christians. I know of many abusers who would identify themselves as Christians. I will make no attempt to speak to their salvation. What I can say is that the Lord does not mess around when it comes to bearing fruit. If you look at how he handled the pharisees or the fig tree that didn’t bear fruit you would quickly know that He is not interested in performative actions but at the roots. I genuinely hope and pray that all the abusers I know do come to know God, but I don’t know if the actions they are demonstrating reflect a heart that is in relationship with Him.
